


Control

by JanieBeGood



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Eventual Smut, Explicit Language, F/M, Force Choking, Force Training, Force-Sensitive Reader, Marking, Neck Kissing, Nightmares, Sexual Tension, Slow Burn, That's Not How The Force Works, Training, Vaginal Fingering, it does now, y'all we gettin' there
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-17
Updated: 2018-04-07
Packaged: 2019-03-20 12:24:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 18,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13717629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JanieBeGood/pseuds/JanieBeGood
Summary: Johanna cut herself off from the Force for everyone's safety, but Kylo Ren's mission forces her to connect herself again.





	1. The Shop

The open panel before Johanna sparked and she yanked her head back slightly, but just enough for her to smack her head against another part of the TIE fighter she had spent the better part of a morning working on. A flashlight she had clasped between her teeth fell and clattered to the metal floor below as she pressed her hands against the side of her head uselessly trying to quell the dull pain.

  
“Breaking my ship up there?” came the gruff voice of Manas, shop foreman of the Starkiller.

  
Jo looked down the ladder at the man with the red, jaunty face and said, “I hit my head.”

  
“Well, it’s for sure dented then,” he teased. Jo closed the panel on the TIE fighter and made her way down the ladder.

  
“Listen, I just said it’d work. Bring it upstairs to the tailors if you want it pretty,” she told him and started to close up the ladder that had served as her office for the past few hours.

  
“Nah, kid, I’ll get that. Go take your break,” Manas said and grabbed the ladder from her.

  
Not one to argue about forgoing mundane tasks, Jo released custody of the ladder to him. She headed off in the direction of the shop’s small break room, whipping out a piece of fabric to wipe away any sweat that had collected on her brow while she concentrated on the TIE fighter this morning.

  
The other twenty or so mechanics had already grabbed trays of food and were chowing down on what looked like some sort of noodle dish. Jo grabbed her own tray and filled it with a portion of the noodles and grabbed more than a few handfuls of a crisp red fruit that she had favored the last time they showed up on the menu. She felt something whizz by her head and saw brown bread roll bounce off of the wall to her left.

  
“You comin’ or you gonna take all of those red loquats again?” said a deep feminine voice from behind Jo.

Jo grabbed the roll from where it landed on the buffet line and made her way to the small group of mechanics near the back of the break room.

  
“I think they tried to serve a rock instead of bread,” said Jo tossing the roll back to D’aja, the owner of the voice. D’aja puts a hand up and caught it with no problem, a skill Jo was always impressed with.

  
“It’s just food they served the upper decks yesterday,” said Alred, a long-faced humanoid alien with a trilling voice.

  
“And what they served the ranking officers the day before that,” said D’aja and took a bite out of the roll. The table let out a burst of laughter and the corners of D’aja’s eyes crinkled, clearly pleased with the reaction to her joke. Jo felt she had been saving that one for a while.

  
“As long as something’s fresh,” said Jo and popped a red fruit into her mouth, “and if there’s decent food off ship I think I can survive.”

  
“Speaking of off ship,” said a newer coworker Jo hadn’t remembered the name of yet, “You got any plans these next few days?”

  
The crew was allowed a five day off-period every four to six weeks when a transport ship would take them to the nearest First Order-friendly planet. While only a few were allowed their five day off-period at a time, the rotation was generally set so the same crew members would be off-ship at the continually. Jo and the others at the table were scheduled for their time starting tomorrow evening.

  
Jo rolled a fruit between her fingers, debating on telling him the truth or making up plans to push back a talk she knew she would eventually have to have with him.

  
“You know, I haven’t gotten that far yet. I don’t have a single thing packed yet,” Jo settled on the truth. It just seemed easier.

  
“Well, a bunch of us were going out for a drink at one of the cantinas tomorrow night if you want to join us,” he said.

  
“Oh yeah? Who is us?” she asked.

  
“For sure Manas and Alred, a couple others over in Analysis, and D’aja isn’t quite convinced yet,” said the nameless mechanic.

  
“I said I was waiting on you,” said D’aja, who had now given up one eating the bread roll and started ripping it pieces. “I am not interested in being the only woman there.”

  
“So?” asked the mechanic, eyebrows raising in hopefulness.

  
Jo pretended to mull it over-she enjoyed making him squirm over something so small as going to the cantina with a group of friends.  
“Mmmm...one drink,” said Jo finally.

  
The mechanic let out a breath and said, “Great!”

  
When neither D’aja nor Jo made a move to continue the conversation, he added, “Ok, well, I will see you two then.”

  
He stood from the table and pointed finger blasters at the two women, making a clicking noise with his tongue for effect, before turning and walking off.  
“He’ll figure it out,” said Jo.

  
“What?” asked D’aja.

  
“No one here’s going to risk losing a solid job for fraternizing with a mechanic,” Jo responded, eating another piece of fruit.

  
“Might take him a few girls,” said D’aja.

  
A red light somewhere behind Jo started blinking and an alarm went off. The smile in D’aja’s eyes fled and her dark skin turned a deep red as the light blinked on and off. The room full of mechanics stared up at the light for moment before breaking out into chaos.

  
“Inspection was supposed to be next week, wasn’t it?” came Alred’s panicked voice as he grabbed several trays of food.

  
“Must’ve moved it up,” said Jo pocketing the rest of her little fruits and exiting the breakroom.

  
“Forty-five seconds and you all better be ready or I’ll have the lot of ya on custodian duty for the next six months,” came Manas’ booming voice from somewhere in the shop.

  
Jo untied the sleeves of her jumpsuit from around her waist and slipped her arms in properly. She grabbed a tool belt from a cart she passed and clipped it around her hips, then jogged to her place with her crew in front of a pair of TIE fighters while she zipped her jumpsuit up the rest of the way. She pulled a hat out of a utility pocket of her pant leg and pulled it low on her head. The less attention she could bring during this inspection the better.

  
The small groups of mechanics assembled as they were now -- standing at attention, awaiting orders -- looked more like tiny army rather than laborers.  
“Calm down, ladies and gents. Just an inspection,” said Manas quietly, possibly more to himself than to any of the crew.

  
Out of the corner of her eye Jo could see an approaching group of officers walking at a brisk pace. She resisted the urge to turn her head to see who would be performing the inspection this time. Some officers were more lenient, but others were prone to questioning crew and revoking certain privileges if unsatisfied with the answers, such as the five day off-ship period.

  
The officers were near silent as they looked over logs and data charts. Jo felt a ball of anxiety form in the pit of her stomach and she felt like her own heartbeat was going to deafen her. Before she could even try to figure out why her body was reacting this way, the answer stepped in front her.

  
The imposing figure stood before the crew, staring them down through his mask. Jo felt her eyes shift to the floor automatically. The ball of anxiety turned into fear as Kylo Ren took a step toward them. Instinct told her to match his steps and back away from him, but her First Order training overrode her instinct and she remained still. Ranking officers never participated in inspections. This was unexpected, to say the least.

  
“Foreman, is this crew going off-ship?,” asked Kylo Ren his mask modulating his voice.

  
“Some of them, yes, sir,” responded Manas.

  
Jo felt Kylo’s gaze go from face to face of the four people standing next to her. She knew she needed to look up, knew she would draw attention to herself, but her own heartbeat in her head confused and distracted her. She felt the figure move in front of her and crouch down in front of her. He was going to make sure she would see him.

  
“Are you scared of me?” asked the man with modulated voice. Jo knew her lips would be unable to make words and she had heard the rumors of Kylo Ren’s interrogation methods, so she pushed one word to front of her mind hoping that would be good enough.

  
“Good. You should be,” he said after what felt like minutes of silently trying to convince him she was sufficiently scared of him.

  
He stood and left the crew. He didn’t inspect any other of the crews, seeming to have gotten what he required out of the five of them. The other officers followed him out of the shop without another word and the room let out collective breath.

  
“If I never have to be near that man again it would be too soon,” said Alred.

  
“So I’m not the only one that wanted to throw up the moment he walked in?” asked Jo letting herself slip to the floor. A laugh came from behind her.

  
“ I wantedta melt right into the floor for you, Jo,” said Eloi in a thick, deep accent.

  
“Then why didn’t you?” laughed Jo and she flicked a red loquat at him.

  
“Alright, alright, back to work,” said Manas coming up from behind the group. He offered a big hand to Jo, “Kid, you okay?”

  
She took it and used to pull herself off of the cold metal floor, “Yeah, I’m fine.”

  
“Don’t take it personally. He can be bastard,” said Manas, patting her shoulder in the most fatherly way he knew how. “Now get back to work. The new kid’s about to kill hisself in there.”

  
Jo looked over to the TIE fighter where the new guy was in fact about to make a couple of fatal rewiring errors. She sighed and gave Manas a look that she hoped communicated her distaste for working with the inexperienced “new guys” all the time.

  
“You’re a good teacher, Jo,” he said, “they learn from you.”

  
Communicated successfully, then.

  
Jo made her way over to the new mechanic, who, now that his own jumpsuit was properly on, she saw was named Luka. He had just shocked his own fingers when she showed up. He sucked on his throbbing fingers like a child. She sighed and got started teaching him the basics on panel rewiring.


	2. Pabos

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Gore

There a soft hiss from the transport ship as its loading ramp lowered signaling to the  small groups of First Order employees that they were to board. Jo grabbed her bag and stood at the very back of the line with the other lower ranked employees. While there was not official boarding order, the mechanics had seen enough incidents where the higher ranks caused enough problems to delay the flight bound for their precious few days away from constant tip-toeing around the massive ship.

Technically they were still supposed to be in their regulatory uniform, but Jo couldn’t be bothered with the headache the low bun she was supposed to wear gave her today. The only real supervisory eyes here were a few Stormtroopers and they were busy with their assigned duties to worry about Jo’s hairstyle or, rather, lack of one. As she half-listened in on a debate on the correct way to fix some aspect of some mechanical part of something Jo didn’t care about, she flipped her hair onto her shoulder. It was a habit whenever she was out of uniform and made her feel feminine after spending so much time trying to fit in with her majority male coworkers.

A prickling started at the nape of her neck, though, that had nothing to do with the fact that it was newly exposed to the air. As the feeling travelled down her spine, Jo turned to try to figure out where the feeling was coming from. She pinpointed a shadowed hallway that felt suffocating, but she couldn’t see anything no matter how long or hard she looked.

Jo jumped as a cold hand found its way to her arm.

“Were you planning on joining us?” said Alred pulling his pale hand away. The line had moved forward and the mechanic crew was nearly to the Stormtroopers performing bag checks. “Yeah, thanks,” she responded, still distracted by that spine-tingling feeling the hallway gave her.

She unzipped her bag and put it on a table for the Stormtrooper to briefly search through. They didn’t bother to say anything when she presumably passed and Jo zipped the bag up and followed Alred into the transport ship. She heard the loading ramp close behind her as she found seat next D’aja and stowed her bag in box against the wall above them.

“Ah yes, a nice rainy off-ship,” said D’aja showing Jo a small screen with information about the flight plan and planet they were heading to.

“Pabos again?” said Jo disappointment wrinkling her forehead. “Join the First Order! See the stars! Visit unique cultures! Visit Pabos for the millionth time and get soaked because the rainy season lasts ninety-eight percent of its year.”

“Could have been Raeterra,” trilled Alred.

“Terrible place,” piped up Manas from behind them. “Not a single drink on the entire planet. And hot…!”

Manas made a sound like it was the by far the worst five days he’s experienced in his life.

“We weren’t expecting you to come, Manas,” said Eloi.

“Neither was I, but I got the order this morning and I wasn’t about to disobey with my superiors.”

The ship made slight jolt and they could feel it lift.

“What about that time they told you to start sending us to clean out the returning cargo ships instead of letting the droids take care of it?” Jo asked.

“Yeah, didn’t we pull extra time for weeks because the cargo ships were covered in garbage?” added D’aja.

“And what did you call them last week when they asked you keep a log minor updates to the control systems? I think it was--,”said Luka.

“Alright, alright. Pipe down,” said Manas settling into his seat with the others soon following suit.

While most of the travellers took the travel time to catch some sleep or even read a book, mostly First Order propaganda, Jo used her time to watch the stars pass by. The lower decks don’t have windows as the ships the mechanics work on are usually lowered down or transported some other way and none of them have even a sliver of window in their bunk rooms. The only way they could get a view of the galaxies beyond the ship they called home was to hope that something on the upper decks required a mechanic to go up to it or wait every four to six weeks for this brief moment. Standing in front of a window as big as a room, she watched the stars, planets, galaxies, lives of beings she would never cross. It made her feel insignificant and regretful. Was this where she was supposed to be?

A cool feminine voice came from a speaker above her, “Entering Pabos’ atmosphere. Please return to your seats.”

Jo looked around at the other passengers, who were all sitting in their seats silently. She looked over to the tiny alien woman sitting in the corner smiling at Jo. Jo nodded understanding that the message was clearly only for her and returned to her seat.

The transport ship landed with the same jolt it took off with. Luckily it was enough to wake up the very asleep Manas, whose snoring drowned out all other attempts to wake him.

“Welcome to Pabos,” came the calm voice of the alien woman, “It is currently raining. Please disembark carefully.”

“It’s raining? Are you kidding me?” said Jo, her mocking tone shock sending ripples of laughter through the mechanic crew.

“There goes our day at the beach,” added D’aja.

“You’re goin’ ta haveta return tha bathing suit ya got there, Manas,” said Eloi pulling bags down from the compartment above him.

“But it made me look so thin,” replied Manas and patted his potbelly. Even the higher ranks were able to let loose and laugh as they passed the mechanic crew to disembark.

Once everyone had passed, they were finally they were able to start piling out of their rows to go file out of the transport ship.

“Meet at the cantina by the barracks after about an hour?” asked D’aja.There was a general affirmative sound from the men in front of them.

Jo grabbed her bag from above her and slide into the aisle behind D’aja. Just as she stepped on loading ramp, she felt the prickles on the nape of her neck again. She turned, expecting to see someone standing right behind her, but there was no one.

“Please disembark,” came the tiny alien’s voice over the speaker.

Jo looked at her briefly before following D’aja down the ramp.

Once their feet hit the pavement, everyone was either whisked away to the barracks by a speeder or distracted by some vendor selling overpriced garbage. Jo and D’aja were one of the few that hopped onto a speeder and taken to the barracks.

The rooms were not luxurious by any means, but it offered privacy, a luxury in itself for people that shared everything else. Jo fell back on the bed arms wide to the side of her, just enjoying the fact that she was on a bed that fit more than a single person. She heard a soft knock on the wall next to her.

“Yes?” she called to the wall the knock came from.

“You have to get ready. Don’t just spend all day being dumb,” came D’aja’s voice.

Jo made a false sound of offense, “I’m just enjoying my room.”

“Enjoy your room later. I am not going to be there alone with Luka,” she said, sounding a little urgent. Poor D’aja. She just wanted have fun. The least Jo could do was change out of a jumpsuit and sit at a bar with her.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” said Jo sitting up.

Jo pulled an outfit out of bag and laid it out on the bed. It was also First Order issued (as was all of her clothing), even though she was not required to wear First Order issued clothing during Off-Ship time. There was nothing symbolic about it that associated the two so Jo felt comfortable wearing it out of the base.

After she was dressed Jo looked herself over in the full length mirror in the bathroom. She realized how silly she looked: black, black, and, unsurprisingly, more black.

“If anyone kicks it I’m prepared,” she said to herself.

Jo searched through the bag she had packed looking for anything with a bit of color, but she had acquired an entire wardrobe of darkness, and she realized she had packed no other shoes than the work boots she wore on the transport ship.

“Are you ready yet?” came D’aja’s voice from beyond the door this time.

“Ugh. Yes,” Jo shouted back.

“Your confidence is comforting,” replied D’aja.

Jo pulled on her heavy boots and went to make her grand entrance.

When Jo stepped out of her room and saw D’aja she immediately wanted to turn around and stay in her room for the next five days. D’aja wore a colorful wrap dress from her home planet and it was working on her.

“Alright, I’m done. You look great. I’m out. Have fun,” Jo pretended to turn on her heel and head back into her room.

D’aja grabbed her shoulders and forced her down the hallway to the lifts,  “Oh. no you don’t.”

“You look really nice and I’m…,” Jo gestures at herself, “I look like a black hole.”

“A very _nice_ black hole,” said D’aja.

 

When the two women entered the cantina, the four men were already there. Jo held onto D’aja’s hand and pushed her way through the crowd of people, perhaps more aggressively than she should have. A few aliens gave her looks as they passed.

“Hallo, girls!” boomed Manas from where he sat at the bar clearly a few drinks in already. “Still raining out there?”

“No, it’s real sunshiney now,” teased Jo. Manas laughed and hit the bar to get the attendant’s attention.

“Get these two ladies a drink on me,” he said to the bartender.

D’aja ordered a some sort of cocktail with a pretty name, but Jo just ordered a basic malt liquor, which she planned to nurse for the night. She didn’t like the way her head felt under the influence of a substance like alcohol.

After a drink or two everyone was able to get more comfortable. The music, loud and sultry called to D’aja who took off to join a small huddle of dancers near the stage. Eloi, a dancer in his own right, took off right after her remarking about challenge over the music, which D’aja seemed receptive to. Manas’ large figure seemed to have disappeared from the bar entirely, but Jo knew he had likely found an illegal gambling game to take part in somewhere in the back. Alred was barely hanging on at a table with several other aliens speaking a clicking language she was completely unfamiliar with. She scanned the faces at the bar, searching for the doofy grin of Luka somewhere among them.

Her eyes landed on a back corner where a dark figure sat so still she was unsure whether there was anyone there at all. As she stared into the darkness she felt its pull--

“Hellooo, Jo!” came Luka’s very cheerful, and slightly slurry, voice. Jo pulled herself away from the dark figure in the corner and she turned to a very unstable, doofy new mechanic.

“Hey, cowboy, where’ve you been?” said Jo standing and helping Luka onto her barstool.

“This place is great!” he said sloppily raising his hand to attract the attention of the bartender. “Hey, can I get another one of those, y’know, one of those...-” he trailed off gesturing at a blue drink another patron was holding. Over his shoulder Jo shook her head at the bartender, who went back to serving someone else.

Jo looked back to the corner, but the dark figure and that darkness it brought with it was gone.

“So you’re enjoying your first night off of base?” Jo asked.

Luka nodded his head in a way only very inebriated people can, lolling it back and forward, “I love it here.”

“Just wait until you find one of those love dens. You’ll never want to leave,” Jo said scanning the room again, not really wanting to admit what she was looking for.

“I don’t think I’ll be requiring of their services,” said Luka and Jo felt two arms wrap around her waist and hands land on her ass.

She turned to face him. His previously cheerful face was dark. His intentions were clear despite his drooping eyelids. Jo wished he would have at least attempted some subtlety.

“No,” Jo said curtly, “Now let’s get those hand off--”

She felt a smack against her left cheek.

“Aw, come on,” he said.

Jo pulled his hands away from her and held his right arm behind him while pushing his head down onto the bar. Luka yelped in pain.

“No’s a no, cowboy,” Jo told him. She pushed his arm up a little higher until he cursed.

“Fuck! I’m sorry! Jeez,” He said. She released his arm and it hit the bar with a thud.

Before she could tell off the audience that had stopped their conversations to watch their altercation a loud boom came from the front entrance. The cantina broke out into chaos. Jo pulled Luka down to the floor and blocked him with the bar stool he had been previously sitting on.

Large aliens and men were pouring into the building, all carrying at least one blaster, most had two. One seemed to be shouting out a garbled language to the others. Jo couldn’t understand it.

She peeked from her hiding spot and saw Alred cowering behind an upturned table.

“Stay here,” she told Luka and made to move.

“What if they find me?” he said, eyes big and childlike.

“Then make sure you stay here and stare at them,” Jo responded sarcastically.

“Wait, really?” Luka said, grabbing at her.

“No! Run if they find you!,” she whispered to him.

The leader seemed to be trying to communicate something the room of patrons, but not many of them seemed to recognize whatever he was saying.

Jo reached Alred who looked close to passing out.

“Alred, come on, hundreds of languages in that big brain. What’s he saying?” Jo said once she crept over to him.

“I-I don’t know that one,” said Alred, wide eyes managing to become wider.

“It’s gotta be close to something you know,” Jo pleaded with him.

Alred closed his eyes as he listened to the gargantuan alien spout off another command in the throaty language. Jo looked over to see D’aja and Eloi hiding the best they could under a booth. Jo willed D’aja to look over, for confirmation that they would be okay, for strength, for anything. D’aja did look, but Jo found none of the comfort she was hoping for. D’aja’s eyes were brimming with tears.

It was then the alien finally made a sound that they finally understood. He let off a string of throaty garbled sounds then finished with a bellowing “KYLO REN!”

“Alred, do you know what he said?” Jo asked.

“I think he said he had a hostage in exchange for Kylo Ren,” he said shuddering.

“What? Ren’s back on base,” Jo said. Alred shrugged at her.

“Get your filthy hands off of me,” said a familiar booming voice and Jo’s stomach dropped.

She peeked over the table to see Manas being manhandled by the creatures twice his size and bleeding from several places. The leader started speaking again.

“He seems to think that Manas is a higher rank officer that the First Order would trade for Ren,” said Alred.

Manas had a habit of talking himself up when he got to drinking. Looks like he went too far with the wrong group of criminals this time.

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” Jo said.

A terrified sound came from D’aja and Eloi’s direction and both Jo and Eloi peeked over the edge of the table.

The leader was holding a long jagged knife to Manas’ neck. He gestured over to where the sound came from and two humans climbed over the mess of the cantina to D’aja and Eloi. One of them held a blaster under the table and the two crawled out with their hands held up.

Jo felt the blood rush out of her head and grabbed onto the table for support. She knew she had go do something but, what? What could she do that wouldn’t make the situation worse?

The leader spoke again, but he used words closer to what she could understand, “No, Kylo Ren?”

He looked around the cantina, it was clear no one would be telling him anything about the commander.

“Bye bye!” The glee in his voice was unmistakable.

Jo looked up and saw the blade slide across Manas’ throat. The expression on his face went from angry and red to blank and emotionless as a curtain of his blood began to leak from his neck. D’aja let out out a tearful “no” as Manas’ body fell to the floor in a heap.

The world slowed for Jo in that moment. She heard the sound of the blasters go off. Manas was gone because of her inaction and now there was a threat to one of the few people that made life in that dumpy mechanic shop worth it.

_Fuck it_ , she thought.

 

The bolts of energy stopped in mid air before they reached D’aja and Eloi. D’aja opened her eyes to see the blinding light just inches from her face. Her head turned to Jo, who stood feet planted, arm out, palm facing the bolts from the blasters. D’aja didn’t recognize her friend.

“Force user!” bellowed the alien leader.

Jo heard the sound of a dozen blasters turning towards her. She ran.

Their size made it easy to duck and dodge between them, but her clunky work boots got caught on a piece of debris Jo was sent plummeting to the floor and into the sticky, warm puddle of Manas’ blood. She looked at him one last time, grieving wasn’t an option for her. Jo lifted herself off of the ground and removed her boots.

A wall of thugs was forming in front of the entrance. Jo stood in front of them, small and alone. She raised her hands and closed her eyes. She felt and heard the blasters fire, but she used a bit of her concentration to stop them before the could get close to her.. Jo felt the energy surge in her and she pulled.

The front wall of cantina came crumbling down, burying the intruders for at least the time being. Jo used the time everyone else adjusting to the shock to make her getaway.

She took off through the gathering crowd and heard a patrolling Stormtrooper shout a stop order behind her. She ignored it, continuing to push through the Pabos locals.

Jo kept running, taking turns and backroads to lose the Stormtroopers following behind her. When her lungs were burning she ducked into an alley, pressing herself against the wall as group of Stormtroopers passed her.

She let herself slip down the wall into a crouching position. The rain pattered against the cobblestone as Jo held her head in hands. She took a breath and convinced herself to stand again.

The fear, the sorrow, the anger, most of all the anger, of the past few minutes finally overwhelmed her. Jo pulled her fist back and aimed for the brick wall in front of her. She expected a burst of pain, but found her fist was held in place mere inches away from the wall by a force she couldn’t see, but was familiar with.  

An electric buzzing sound came from the dead end of the alleyway and a red light illuminated a dark figure against the bricks. Jo looked over her Force frozen arm to see a young man with dark hair and deep eyes holding Kylo Ren’s cross hatch light saber. His arm was extended out to her, holding her in place.

“Who are you?” he asked.

Jo focused her energy on fighting the Force hold keeping her in place.

She felt herself lifting and turning towards the unmasked man she had difficulty was believing was Kylo Ren, a person she had feared before she ever stepped foot on the base. He lowered her down to her knees.

“You were asked a question,” he said and brought his hand up to her temple.

Jo felt him trying to reach into her mind, but she knew her protections were too set in place for him to get past.

Her eyes closed. And then she let the pretense of who had been fall away and let the darkness envelope her. She had suppressed this part of her so long that she had forgotten how powerful it made her feel.  

Jo opened her eyes, a hint of mischief behind them. She pushed past the Force hold on her body and grabbed at Kylo Ren’s hand then used her other hand to grab his jaw.

He tried to pull away but she held him steady. She felt his energy drain and he fell to his knees.

“Are you scared of me?” Johanna asked him.

She didn’t have to look into his mind to get her answer. His eyes gave him away.

“Good. You should be.”

  



	3. Back on Base

The sound of blasters whizzed past her ears. The Stormtroopers found them. Johanna spared only but a glance to them, then returned her gaze to Kylo Ren’s dark features. She didn’t have a plan, but she didn’t have a death wish either. She  broke the skin-to-skin contact that was sapping the strength out of him and grabbed his collar. She brought him closer to her.

“Tell them to bring me back to the base unharmed. I want an audience with Snoke,” Johanna told him. His eyes never left hers, but he nodded. Johanna let his collar go with enough of a push to send him off balance and falling backwards.She moved from the crouching position she had risen to back to kneeling and slowly rose her hands to place them behind her head. 

She never took her eyes off of the man she had so feared just a day earlier who now stood nearly breathless in the rain, gripping the wall of an alley to hold himself up. She couldn’t help but smirk. 

The Stormtroopers approached, blasters raised to Johanna. She was growing concerned that Kylo wouldn’t keep his promise and something terrible would have to happen to the five soldiers approaching.

“Wait,” said Kylo,”Take her to the transport ship. We are returning tonight.” 

A Stormtrooper approached Johanna and clasped two metal rings on her wrists that held them close together. Another Trooper flanked her and the two of them lifted her under her arms and brought her a standing position then led her out of the alley escorted by others. 

While they marched to the transport ship a nagging at the back of her mind told Johanna to look for the faces of her friends in the gathering crowd, to make sure they were safe, but her mind was racing far too fast to register any of the people she passed. She wondered why she had ever closed herself off from this feeling. She loved the chaos that seemed to surround her and run through her veins. It felt like coming home.

  
  


The ride back to the base was uneventful. The minds of Stormtroopers were full of questions, but none they dared speak aloud. Kylo Ren was nowhere she could be found, but she could feel him nearby. The familiar prickling on her neck told her that he must have been the source of the darkness she felt on the way to Pabos. 

Once they disembarked she was immediately brought to a restraining rig and was left there for what seemed like hours, but she didn’t mind. Johanna bided her time by closing her eyes and cataloging the sounds of what was around her. The slight metallic clunk every time she breathed against the contraption she was tied to, the steady in-out breath of the Stormtrooper guard right outside the open door, the four shuffling feet passing every so often that could only be patrolling Stormtroopers, somewhere further down the hallway she heard a very faint consistent beeping, and then….

Johanna opened her eyes when she felt him enter. She heard the doors slide closed and he stepped in front of her dressed in his usual uniform, mask included.

“I expected an audience with a supreme leader,” she said.

“The supreme leader is tending to other matters,” Kylo Ren responded, voice obscured by the mask, “like how it appears that his own apprentice caused major damage to a popular revenue source for a planet that provides the First Order with important resources.”

Johanna made a tutting noise with her tongue and simply said, “Shame.”

She saw him take a breath as if to speak but she interrupted him.

“My name is Johanna. I have no family name, I have no family. I originate from a planet of no consequence to the First Order. I don’t know what I am, how I got like this, or what to do about it,” she said. 

“Training?” he asked as soon as she had finished.

“Trial and error,” she responded, “Anything other questions?”

Kylo Ren paused a moment, staring at her, then stormed past her.

“Ben Solo,” she whispered.

He stopped and turned back to her.

“What did you say?” he asked. He positioned himself in front of her and bent over so his mask only inches from her face.

“Your mind is well guarded but there’s,” she paused as she searched for the word, “cracks.”

Kylo Ren held his arm and let it hover above her temple. 

_ A challenge _ , thought Johanna. She pulled her head and shoulders away from the rig narrowed her eyes at him.

“Darkness let down by the light so he turned away from it, but the pull remains strong,” Johanna said as she searched his mind. She felt him push back, but it wasn’t enough.

“An apprentice let down by his master, so he murdered children to prove himself to a new one,” she continued. A stronger push this time, but it would never be enough. His gloved hand brushed her skin as if throwing a bit of his physical strength behind it would help.

“A son let down by his father, a father willing to do anything to rectify,” she searched for the moment in his head, wanted him to see it, too. “You killed him.”

Johanna felt the gloved hand wrap around her throat and push her back against the rig. The anger, the guilt, the shame was rolling off of him in waves. She wished she could see the pain in his eyes.

“That is enough,” he said through the mask and, if she guessed accurately, through his teeth.

Johanna’s vision started to grow black along the edges before let her go. She gasped and coughed as her lungs filled with air. 

Kylo Ren straightened.

“You will be summoned for an audience with the supreme leader. You will remain here until the time comes,” he said and strode out past her and out of the door. 

 

“Brought back to base unharmed and audience with Snoke” were the two things she had demanded. The bruising on her throat was caused after they had returned to base and she had never specified the timeliness of the meeting. 

Johanna sat there for a day, a fact she was only able to keep track of thanks to the men and women bringing her food, which she initially refused. When a woman brought around the fourth meal, Johanna wouldn’t be able to turn it down. Her mind was muddled and weak, her head throbbed.

Once accepted, the woman stood next to her and held a piece of the food to Johanna’s lips. She kept them closed. There was something about this infuriated and humiliated her.

“I’m capable of feeding myself,” she said to the woman. 

“My apologies, Miss, but we are under strict orders not to release-”

Her excuse was cut short when Johanna released own her hand from her bonds and held her hand to the woman’s head. 

“Hush,” she directed and the woman’s eyes rolled back into her head and she was asleep. She had played by Ren’s rules, now she would play by hers.

Johanna used the Force to catch the woman’s body before it hit the floor and released her other hand to catch the plate of food that was falling to the ground. Either sound would surely alert the guard.

She let the woman’s body land onto the ground softly and brought the plate to herself. She ate ravenously and was impressed to find that there was worse food served on the ship than in the shop break room.

Johanna left the empty plate on the floor and cautiously stepped out of the rig. She crept behind the Stormtrooper and said loud enough for them to hear, “You will let me go. As far as you know the servant left ten minutes after she entered and the prisoner remains.”

The Trooper was silent for a moment, then a robotic voice said, “I will let you go. As far as I know the servant left ten minutes after she entered and the prisoner remains.”

“Good, Stormtrooper,” said Johanna.

She walked passed them and into the hallway. There had been no sounds of patrolling Troopers, but Johanna still kept a part of her mind scanning for possible unwelcome discoveries. 

The lower decks of the base were well known to her, but Johanna only had basic knowledge of the upper decks. She went where she felt the strongest pull, assuming this would bring her to Snoke, but she found herself in a wing that reminded of her of the housing wing of the lower decks.  She approached the door from which the most power seemed to pour from. It was locked. 

Johanna put her hand flat on the door and focused. It only took a few seconds fighting her way through the cracks in his defenses to figure out his passcode. She unlocked the door and it slid open. 

His apartment was neat and bare except for the few First Order provided furniture items. A window ran the length of the room. To her right there was a door and she felt him tossing and turning in his sleep behind it, no doubt at least subconsciously aware of her intrusion.

She took a spot in front of the window, where he was sure to see her when he left his room. Johanna planted her feet, crossed her arms, and let her eyes go slightly out of focus as the stars and planets outside passed by. 

The cracks in his mind were very small, but they were there and they were just enough for her to take advantage of. She became a passive passenger of his tumultuous dreams. A few times he seemed to notice her standing just in the background, but usually the dreams changed very quickly and he would be enraptured in whatever took hold of him next. 

Kylo Ren wasn’t very Kylo Ren in his dreams. He never wore his mask and his brown eyes were often filled with fear or shame. That is, until the last dream. The last dream featured what Johanna assumed was a version of herself. This Johanna had given herself over to Kylo and the things they did made her cheeks feel warm and she started pulling out of his mind.

Johanna placed her palms on the window followed by her forehead and then closed her eyes. She knew that dreams didn’t necessarily mean a waking attraction, and, besides, she had never even thought of  _ him  _ as anything other than a means to an end. 

“Enjoy yourself in my head?” she heard come from the doorway to Kylo’s room. 

Her eyes flew open and she pulled herself away from the window. Her other standing position would’ve been so much more intimidating. 

Kylo Ren for once didn’t look intimidating. He stood with his hands in First Order issued sweatpant pockets wearing a First Order issued tank top - just like all of the maintenance guys she works, well,  _ used _ to work, with. It made him so human and she didn’t like it.  She turned on her heel and took slow, pacing steps.

“Snoke isn’t here,” she said; not a question. 

“No, he isn’t, but you are scheduled for your meeting in just a few hours,” he responded.

She paced back towards the window, “You expected an escape.”

“Yes, I did, and hours earlier than now.”

“I played by the rules,” she spat.

“You were obedient,” he seemed excited to say the words.

“I played the game to get what I wanted,” she had stopped pacing and planted her feet to make her point clear.

He walked toward her and every nerve ending in Johanna’s body told her both to back away from and go to him; in the end she stayed put. She hoped she looked defiant when he reached her. She hadn’t made a move to at least defend herself, but he didn’t attack. His fingers grazed lightly over the blue marks across her neck then trailed down to her upper arms before grasping her tightly.

“You could’ve stopped me,” he whispered.

“I played your fucking game,” she whispered back but with an unexpected harshness laced between the words. 

With that he seemed to back down, a rather unsatisfactory win for Johanna. 

“Don’t leave,” he said and walked back into his bedroom.

Johanna found herself in quandary. Does she disobey his orders and leave as he is no doubt expecting, or does she does stay and risk the “obedience” taunting again? She couldn’t stand the idea of him being right or being described a “obedient.”

Before she could make her decision, Kylo exited his bedroom, mask and all, insidious to underlings as ever. Luckily for Johanna, she no longer felt like an inferior.

“Glad to see you’re still behaving...obediently,” he said with modulated, distorted voice.

“I couldn’t decide which would infuriate you more: staying or leaving,” Johanna responded.

“Yes, almost as if being stalled by your indecision was a part of the plan,” he said and walked past her without a second look and out the door of his apartment. 

Johanna paused for moment, unsure of what to do. She hated, no, not hated,  _ despised  _ what he was doing to her. 

She followed him out of the apartment at brisk pace to catch up with his long limbs. Not even caring to be subtle about it, Johanna flipped through his mind trying to figure out where they were headed.

“Just because I cannot see into your mind does not mean I cannot feel you reaching into mine,” he said.

“Yes, and it must drive you crazy to be faced with mind you cannot enter,” she responded.

“Not when the owner of the mind is so easy to read otherwise,” he said cooly. 

Johanna felt the flush creep back into her cheeks. Between anger and embarrassment, she was glad he couldn't see into her or physically see her easily with the mask on since her face was apparently so easy to read.

She decided to take a risk, double down on the embarrassment she was feeling. If it worked, she’d have an upper hand on Kylo Ren, if if didn’t, well, she couldn’t sink much further than she was already, which would only mean her resurgence would feel twice as victorious when it came around.

Johanna focused on the final scene from this morning’s dream and pushed it into Kylo’s head.  She felt him fight to push her out and she just pushed harder.

He turned to her and Johanna backed against the cold, metal hallway wall fast. He placed his palms on either side of her head and his mask filled her vision. She felt small and fearful of him again and hoped he couldn’t see that her breath had quickened. Kylo Ren didn’t say a word, but removed his gloved palms from the wall and continued down the hall. Johanna followed slightly behind him for the remainder of the trip.

They arrived at a commissary-type store for clothing --rows and rows of similar gray and black First Order issued uniforms. Kylo stopped in front of the door.

“Find something appropriate to wear. Your audience with the Supreme Leader is in an hour,” he said, refusing to look at her. Whatever he was feeling had successfully repaired the cracks, too, so between the mask and being mind-blind she couldn’t even begin to figure out his feelings toward her at this moment. She thought it safest to assume very, very angry and just nodded her head once to notify him that she had received the message. 

Then he turned on his heel and left without so much as a goodbye.

Johanna took a half second to gather herself together before approaching the droid behind that counter of the uniform commissary.

“How may I help you?” said the pleasant-voiced droid.

“I am looking for something ‘appropriate’,” said Johanna and gestured down to her casual and now fairly dirty outfit from a day ago. It felt like an age ago and she tried to sever the tugging in her chest when she even briefly thought about the group of people she had been friendly with. 

“I will see what we can do,” said the droid pulling her out of her fog. 

She detected judgement in its robotic voice, but followed it into the racks. The only person she truly wanted to give a hard time was Kylo Ren. The droid may have made a needless comment, but it was no threat to her and she allowed it to style her as it pleased. 


	4. A Meeting with Snoke

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Violence

Johanna found herself missing the days of her mechanic jumpsuit. The black uniform she was put in was restricting and uncomfortable, and the droid had suggested she put her hair in the First Order regulation bun low on her head to complete the “appropriateness” of the look. When she regarded herself in a mirror, she disliked the clean cut severity of the look.

Now Johanna was waiting outside of what she supposed was Snoke’s throne room, her gloved hands clasped behind her supporting her lower back as she leaned against the wall. She perked up at the sound of many boots stomping through the hallway.

Kylo Ren and General Hux were followed by several officers and Stormtroopers. Hux’s jaw was set and he looked furious, which, truly wasn’t much different from his usual demeanor. Must be frustrating to always feel so...impotent.

Johanna stood straight expecting to be join their ranks in entering the chamber, but Kylo waved his hand in a way to signal that she was to remain outside. The group turned into the room without a word or a look to her. Two Stormtroopers remained outside with her, more for protocol than to truly stop her from entering. Still, she didn’t dare risk it.

She spent the hour waiting outside of the hall trying to listen in to any of the officers’ minds, but a being as powerful as Snoke would be able to cast a wide net over even the most lax of minds to keep anyone from eavesdropping on their meetings. Every now and then one of the men or women, usually Hux, would get angry enough to shout, but even then it was muffled and Johanna could only get a word or two. Eventually she had settled in and became acquainted with the breathing of the two Stormtroopers accompanying her.

Then the doors slid open. Johanna took that as her cue and strode as confidently as she could manage into the room. She was met with the faces of all except Kylo Ren as they turned to watch her enter the room. A massive man, presumably Snoke, sat in a gigantic throne. Small, barely perceptible horizontal lines crossed his figure. A hologram, she realized, made enormous to remind them who was in charge. She stood in before him, in front of the others.

“I believe my presence here comes at your request,” said Snoke.

“Yes, Supreme Leader,” Johanna responded. Her fingers were curled into fists at her sides to stop herself from nervously fiddling with the hem of her uniform.

“Why,” the massive figure stated as he leaned over her.

“I believe my relationship with First Order is no longer beneficial,” she told him. “I request a transport shuttle to the nearest inhabited neutral planet with none of the repercussions usually associated with such a request. Won’t make it very far with fugitive label over my head.”

Snoke let out a hearty, rasping laugh.

“With the damage done to the relationship between the First Order and Pabos that you alone dealt, you shouldn’t be expecting to be leaving Starkiller Base very soon,” he said.

Johanna set her jaw, anger rising deep her belly.

“I wouldn’t say that I was alone in breaking the peace between you and the planet. My hand was forced when a squadron of enemies attacked the cantina looking for a certain Commander who found himself Off Ship that night,” Johann responded.

She looked over shoulder to the masked man behind her.

“Did your attempts to reclaim your dignity overrule appropriate debriefing protocol?” she spat at him.

 Though his face was heavily shadowed, Johanna could see the concern on Snoke’s scarred features.

“There was an attack? By whom?” demanded Snoke. The officers were silent.

“Their race was unknown to me, as was their language, but their intent to find Kylo Ren was made clear,” she reported.

There was felt a flicker of fear that ran through the mind of one of the men near the back of room. Johanna turned so she was no longer facing Snoke, but instead the man she had felt the spike in emotion from.

“Admiral Gildan,” she said to the him, “perhaps you are able to enlighten us.”

Gildan swallowed and said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Johanna raised her arm  to him and the admiral’s feet lifted off of the ground. He floated toward her steadily. Snoke seemed content to let her continue.

“Admiral, you have one more chance to tell me the truth or this will become very painful for you,” she told him as she stopped him in front her.

His jaw was set as she kicked his feet into a wider than normal stance and used the toe of her boot to push him him in the back of the knee to get him into a kneeling position.

“What do you know about the attack at Pabos?” she let her voice soften.

Gildan paused for a moment, Johanna could see him considering his options. He said, “Supreme Leader, I do not think allowing the girl to conduct such a-”

Whatever he has planning on saying never made it out of his throat. Johanna held a hand behind his head and Admiral Gildan’s face was frozen in a silent scream.

“His position afforded him access to the equipment needed to utilize his talents in hacking to acquire classified information. He didn’t know place, time, or reason for Kylo Ren’s presence on the planet. He sold the information to a Resistance-friendly group for…” she trailed off.

“For?” Snoke encouraged her to continue.

She paused and she felt a pang in her heart, but she continued, “...for safe passage for his family to the Outer Rim.”

“Well done!” said Snoke as a monstrous smile crossed his face.

Johanna used her teeth to pull the leather glove off of the hand that wasn’t being used to run through Gildan’s memories at a nauseating speed. She wanted, no, _needed_ to stop them. She lightly touched his temple with naked hand, the skin-to-skin contact made the man scream.

The connection between them was severed but Johanna didn’t break the physical contact. She was angry with him, the person who had begun the sequence of events that brought the monster back. Gildan’s voice was growing hoarse through the screaming.

She vaguely heard Snoke request, then demand that she stop. She ignored him in favor of the pure rage that was finally being released on the poor man.

“Ren, stop her,” said Snoke and Johanna felt a change in the Force around her. She fought him off.

Then she was soaring backwards. Her eyes finally disconnected from the screaming man in front of her and she looked up at Snoke who had raised his arm to her. Air left her lungs as her side hit the wall and she slid to the floor.

Snoke dismissed the lower ranked officers. She pushed herself off of the floor as they filed out of the room. Two Stormtroopers carried the body of Admiral Gildan behind them.

Johanna, still breathless, but not one to give up put a hand on the wall and pulled herself to standing position. She looked back to the room. Snoke, Hux, and Kylo Ren were the only remaining audience members of her interrogation.

She felt herself lift and float toward Snoke, a gesture she felt oddly grateful for as she didn’t think she could handle to walk back quite as confidently as the first time, or at all for the matter. Snoke stopped her over the spot where Admiral Gildan’s body had been but didn’t let her feet touch the floor.

“Power without control is dangerous, Johanna,” said Snoke. “You cannot be allowed to continue on such a reckless course. Kylo Ren can train you to control-”

“Yes, Ren is the perfect example for self control, Supreme Leader. He should be glad his talents are worth more than damage he has caused with that weapon,” she said.

“I don’t believe you saw what you did to Admiral Gildan,” said quietly Hux to her right.

“If he had Resistance secrets they are long gone now,” said Snoke. “His mind is gone.”

“He didn’t. I checked,” Johanna responded through gritted teeth.

“Ah, yes. You were stuck in his mind. Another feat Kylo Ren has yet to accomplish.”

“I don’t understand why I can’t be dumped on some forsaken planet and left alone!” she shouted, hands balled in fists.

“You are a ticking bomb. Without any sense of control over your own power you cannot be trusted,” Snoke responded calmly.

“I can cut myself off again. You didn’t know I was here for _years_ ,” she said, almost to the point of pleading now.

“And yet... you’re back. How can I guarantee that won’t happen again? And…” he said, “you felt halved when you were cut off, didn’t you? How can you feel all of this power and then deny yourself again?”

Johanna couldn’t respond. He was right. She couldn’t turn her back on this again.

“You will train with Ren daily until the next attempt on the Pabos mission,” said Snoke. “If successful, your debt will be repaid and your future on this base will be revisited.”

“Yes, Supreme Leader,” she said hanging her head.

“Ren, I trust you can organize the training appropriately?” he asked Kylo.

“Yes, Supreme Leader,” he said through his mask.

“Hux, gather intel on when the next opportune strike can occur,” Snoke said to the redhead.

“Of course, Supreme Leader,” responded Hux. Johanna could feel the fear coming off of him in waves. Usually the idea of making a grown man quiver in his boots would please her, but she only felt ashamed.

“Good. You have your orders,” said Snoke and his image blinked out of existence.

Johanna fell from her slight height onto her knees. She covered her eyes with the palms of her hands. The sound of boots turning and marching out of the room vaguely registered with her.

“I am not interested in waiting for you for the rest of day,” came a modulated voice.

She pulled her face away from her hands and looked up at him. Kylo Ren’s mask came into view as her eyes adjusted. He held out an arm to her, not to use the Force, but to help her up.

She grabbed his forearm and braced herself for the pain that would surely rocket is way through her back. He pulled and she came up, but not without a grimace and a grunt.

“It will hurt worse tomorrow,” he warned as she straightened.

“He does that a lot?” she asked following him out to the hallway.

“Only to the people he likes,” he said.

_Smug asshole_ , she thought to him. He seemed to acknowledge this with a quick look over his shoulder as he strode away from her and out of the doors.

Johanna shambled yards behind him, gripping her left side as if that could do anything to lessen the pain.

Kylo was able to keep her out of his mind, either because he had figured out her tricks or because he was riding the wave of anger that took hold of him when he was able to oust her in the hallway. Johanna felt concern over the thought of being under his direction training. Was he going to spend however long these training sessions were to take and use them as punishment? Without being able to know his feelings, she was unsure and the concern grew.

The doors slid open and Johanna straightened herself before walking into the hallway. She could see Kylo’s back as he strode away from her.

“Ma’am, you are directed to follow us to your living quarters,” said one of the Stormtroopers guarding the doors. She nodded to him and the two turned and led her in the opposite direction. Johanna glanced back at Kylo’s retreating form, but he had turned the corner and was gone.

 

The Troopers led her to a higher floor and down several hallways before coming to what was supposed to be her living quarters. A Trooper entered a code into a datapad and the door slid open. Johanna stepped in and the door slid shut behind her. When it did she let go of her breath and supported herself on the wall.

“Please enter a new code,” said a datapad on the inside of the apartment.

She gasped and clutched at the pain in her side.

“Please enter a new code,” repeated the datapad.

She unzipped the confining uniform and lifted her undershirt to reveal a bright red spot blooming under her skin. She balled her fist and hit the wall as hard as she could manage at the moment.

“Please enter a-”

“Alright! Jeez,” she said and typed in a five-digit code.

Johanna made her way toward the bedroom and removed piece after piece of the uniform she had been placed in. By the time she made it to the en suite bathroom she was down just her undergarments. She examined herself in the mirror. Between the dark blue bruises around her neck, brand new red splotch on her side, and dark circles forming beneath her eyes, she looked like she’d had a rough few days.

 She stepped into the shower and turned it on. She let the water run over her skin as she stood for minutes or hours, she didn’t know, but she hoped the water would wash away the bad dream she felt stuck in. It didn’t.

 

The bedroom was small and utilitarian, but compared to the bunk beds and shared bathrooms of the lower levels, it was nearing luxurious. Johanna opened a drawer in a dresser and pulled out undergarments and a simple outfit. She ran the fabric between her fingers. Even the clothing seemed to be a higher quality.

The meeting with Snoke didn’t last all day, but Johanna hadn’t allowed herself a full rest since before her Off-Ship excursion, only the half-conscious states in which she still remained keenly aware of her surroundings. She was exhausted, her mind was having trouble concentrating on even the simplest task, but Johanna was determined to keep up with the operating base.

She located a small bookshelf in the living area. It was mostly filled with First Order propaganda, but settled on what amounted to a Starkiller Base Survival Guide. Within the first few pages she determined that there would be very few people aboard the ship if all of these rules were truly followed to the letter. Johanna made herself comfortable on the couch and began making a mental list in her head of all of the rules she had been breaking regularly.

Had she not been slipping into sleep so rapidly she might have heard the door to the hallway open behind her. She might have felt the presence of someone picking up the pieces of the uniform strewn about the living area or the feeling of someone removing the book from her loose grip. She could have even heard the person place bowl a small of fruits, tiny and crisp and red, on the coffee table before her.


	5. Training

On the surface, the water was calm and serene, but just underneath Johanna sank deeper to the ocean floor. She reached an arm out towards the child sinking faster than she was, but the shooting pain in her side made her recoil and seemed to push any remaining air out of her lungs. Johanna felt invisible fingers restricting her throat again and panic set in as she realized she couldn’t help the child, much less herself, from their inevitable doom.

Johanna awoke on the couch gasping for the for the air that the dream version of herself had needed so desperately.  The sudden movements made the skin on her side pull and the pain fully woke her up from her nightmare. She hissed as she pulled herself up.

The apartment was dark, only the blue glow from a few small machines scattered around the room helped her eyes adjust. She pressed a button on a glowing device on the table in front of her and a translucent, holographic display appeared in front of her. It had a scheduling program displayed on a dashboard for easy access. Johanna only had one item scheduled for today: an hours long training session. Her eyes drifted over to the a small clock in the upper corner of the display. She had slept through the rest of regular waking hours and into the time when most base workers were to rest.

Johanna touched another button on the device on the table and the lights in the living area turned on. With the table now fully visible she could see that the book she had been fallen asleep reading had been placed neatly on the table, a bowl of red loquats sat next to it, and a small vial of tablets sat next to that. For a moment fear caught her breath and she reached out with the Force to feel if anyone was there. No one was, but the thought of someone so near her without her knowledge left her feeling uncomfortable, unsafe.

Despite the protesting of her stomach, Johanna didn’t trust the bowl of fruit and ignored it to picked up the vial of tablets. It instructed her to take one pill every four hours as needed for pain. While they looked simple and safe, she knew of plenty of other things that seemed simple and safe, but were deadly. She made a mental note to bring them with her and stop at the medbay to have them examined.

Bracing herself on the arm rest, Johanna lifted herself from the sofa. She grit her teeth as the bruise on her side sent out a wave of pain. He was right, it does hurt worse the next day.

She managed to stand and shuffle her way to the bathroom where she carefully removed her top to examine the wound. The bruise covered a good portion of her right rib cage and was a deep, deep dark purple and blue. Johanna placed two fingers on it and pushed. The pain made her curse, but she found herself pushing harder until she started to see black fuzzing around her vision. She pulled her hand away and gripped the sides of the sink while she caught her breath. 

_ Fuck _ , she thought and turned on the cold tap. Johanna let the coolness of the water run over the back of her neck to help bring her back from whatever place in her mind she had just gone. 

When Johanna finished readying herself in the bathroom, she examined the contents of her closet. While she didn’t know what kind of training she was to expect, she thought she might as well prepare for something at least a little bit physical. Once the medbay gave her the go ahead on the pills, she thought she might be able to move at least a little more. 

After donning very basic, but relatively stretchy clothing and making sure the pills were stuffed in one of her pockets, Johanna left her apartment. It was still very early, but she hoped there was at least one droid in the cafeteria to help her get something to eat. 

 

There were no droids, nor any people available to help her, but Johanna was able to sneak a small piece of fruit off of a delivery cart. It wouldn’t be enough to satisfy her, but it would at least keep her stomach calm for at least a little while. 

The medbay was on the way to the training room, which was fortunate because, between taking a few bites of the fruit every now and then and resting against the wall when she got adventurous and turned a little too much or breathed in a little too hard, her scheduled training time was closing in fast. She approached the doors of the medbay but they wouldn’t open. She felt a figure approaching behind her.

“It is closed,” said the modulated voice.

Johanna sighed before saying, “Yes, it is.”

“Why are you visiting medical?” he asked. Johanna put a hand on the wall and turned to him, masking the effect that pain had on her.

“Someone was in my quarters last night. They left these,” she told him and pulled out the vial.

Kylo Ren paused before giving a curt “Follow me” order and he stalked off towards the training room. She did but no where his speed both out of defiance and pure inability to keep up. 

By the time she entered the training room he had already removed his helmet and cowl and was in the process of taking off his gloves. His back was to her.

“You have a dedicated employee of the First Order assigned to aid you in day-to-day needs. Yesterday she reported that you were asleep when she came to take care of them,” he said not bothering to turn around.

Johanna felt anger flare up in her gut, “And will she be providing you with daily reports of my activities?”

“No,” he said finally turning to her. “I had requested that she give you the vial. She just confirmed that she had done as ordered.” 

Johanna didn’t say anything in her embarrassment, but didn’t take her eyes off of him, either.

“I have no reason to be rid of you,” he continued. 

“Yet,” she added. 

He didn’t respond to that, but approached her, “Do you want me to check if it’s anything severe?” 

She paused a moment, considering, then braced herself on the wall next to her. He started lifting her shirt before she pushed it back down and gave him a warning glare.

“It’s required,” he said. Johanna reluctantly allowed him to lift her shirt just enough so he could see the injury. He gently put his cold fingers against the dark marks on her skin.

She hated being in such a compromising position and hated that he was more than likely enjoying every bit of being just the tiniest bit stronger than she was. She took a jab at a weak spot.

“What’s wrong, Ren? Can’t get into my mind to figure it out?” she taunted him.

A sharp pain rocketed through her core as he squeezed. Johanna made a fist and gently hit it against the wall to stop the threat of any cries of pain falling out of her mouth. 

“Take the pills. It’ll feel better in a week or two,” he said turning from her.

Johanna reluctantly pulled the vial from her pocket and popped one the small tablets into her mouth. She coughed as it stuck in her throat slightly, but otherwise she was able to get it down. She turned to Kylo, who stood before a chair he had placed in the middle of the room.

“Sit,” he commanded. 

She walked over to another chair and lowered herself into it. Kylo held a small, smooth stone in his palm. 

“Hold it,” he said and Johanna made a move to pick it up. He pulled his hand away and said, “No. Hold it.”

Johanna understood. She held out her arm and used the Force to lift the stone from his palm. Kylo took a few steps back and fell into a crouch. Johanna could see his dark form out of focus just beyond the stone.

“What am I doing?” she asked.

“Exercising control,” he responded without even a moment of consideration.

The anger flared up in her belly again. How dare he treat her like disobedient child, especially when he can barely control himself when anything in his plan goes even slightly awry? 

As her concentration wavered, so did the stone. Behind it Kylo’s form shifted slightly and Johanna felt his attempts to enter her mind. She pushed him out and sent the stone flying at him. He caught it in the outstretched hand he had been using to search her mind.

“Stay out of my head, Ren,” she told him, her jaw set.

He said nothing but the look in his eyes implied that he demanded the same of her. He stood and walked over to the table where he placed his gloves, cowl, and mask. Johanna used the back of the chair to lift herself from the seat.

“You failed. You’re done for today,” he said placing his cowl over his shoulders. “Try again tomorrow.”

“And what? You don’t have anything to learn from me?” she asked him.

“You have nothing I want,” he said before putting his mask over his head and turning on his heel. 

“Nothing?” Johanna asked unsure of why she was feeling a little offended at his phrasing.

Kylo paused at the door to the training room and turned the mask to her.

“Nothing,” he said and left. 

His condescension, the pitiful training, the weak attempt to invade her mind, telling her that  _ she  _ failed? It all played her nerves like a fiddle and she used the Force to lift the table that had previously been host to Kylo’s things and threw is hard enough against the opposing wall that it shattered. 

She had worked herself up enough that she was out of breath and each inhale made a dull ache throb in her side. She gripped the back of the chair while she caught her breath. 

The stone laid in the middle of the floor. Johanna noticed it when she she had nearly composed herself. It clicked then what Kylo had been intending. She let out a sigh and made her way to the door. Her hand waved over the stone as she passed it and it flew to her.

 

Kylo had expected her to escape the first time and he expected her to show him up now. She hated that she was so easy for him to read. Her hand hand gripped the stone hard as she strode through the hallways to his quarters.

She held it with the Force and made sure to keep it steady when she knocked on his door. It slid open and she walked inside. He was standing at the window, cowl and mask removed, clearly waiting for her. 

“How long am I supposed to do this?” she asked.

“Until I tell you to stop,” he responded. 

Annoyance and anger threatened to ruin her concentration but she quelled it and stepped further into the room. She felt the doors close behind her. 

For hours she stayed like that, standing still as she held the rock steady. Her arm and back began to ache, but she ignored the pain in favor of proving Kylo wrong and taking his “Failure” and shoving it in his face. 

Her focus wavered when she saw him move from his spot at the window and start to circle her. When he stopped behind her, she stifled a shiver that ran down her spine, and when she felt his breath on her the back of neck her concentration turned to the fluttering in her stomach. Luckily the stone was barely affected.

He knew what he was doing and his tricks were dirty. She shook off the butterflies that his closeness created and doubled down on her concentration. It was only minutes after that that Kylo stopped the training session. 

Johanna’s mind was exhausted and muddled. She brought the stone to herself and held it out to Kylo. When he took it, she felt his very faint presence try to reach into her mind again. 

She grabbed his wrist and pulled his arm past her as her other hand flew to grasp his jaw. Their height difference and the position she had pulled him into threw him slightly off balance and she moved her foot near the leg that was holding more of his weight in the event she needed to bring him down. 

He didn’t need reminding of what happened the last time she held him in a similar position. While Johanna didn’t intend to hurt him, she did want to remind him of her own dirty tricks. 

“You’re playing with fire, you know that?” she asked him. Their faces were just inches apart, her eyes felt like they were bouncing around his face trying get any sort of read on him. She refused to delve into his mind if she was trying to reprimand him for going near hers. His eyes had remained steady on hers. 

When he didn’t say anything, she released him and turned to leave. She put a hand to her side. The pills had worn off a while ago but she didn’t have the mental energy to pretend it wasn’t bothering her. 

“Take the pills before you come tomorrow,” came Kylo’s voice from behind her. “Cold should help tonight.”

“Fuck off, Ren,” she told him without bothering to look back as she exited his room. 

 

Johanna felt like she had only just made it to her quarters. She let the door close behind then slumped against them and slid to the floor. Her hands rubbed down her face, a groan escaping from her mouth. She was exhausted. 

This position made it hard for her to breath and the extra effort made the pain double in her side. She used the wall to pull herself up and checked the time using the hologram display from the device on the coffee table. It was nearing evening mealtime. She knew she had been holding that stupid rock for a long time, but not nearly for that long. He had even gone over whatever scheduled training time they had been allotted. 

The red loquats still sat in their bowl on the table. The pills hadn’t poisoned her and he stomach was growling, so Johanna grabbed a small handful and ate them on the way to her bedroom. 

When she undressed she made a point to examine the bruises on her throat. The small finger marks around her throat were lighter, not as noticeable. When her hair was down and hung around her shoulders they were easy enough to hide. The few cuts and scrapes she had earned on her night on Pabos were mostly negligible by now, some were turning an angry red and she made a mental note to dress them once she showered.

The water was warm and nearly lulled Johanna to sleep while she stood. When the water began to run cold, she snap herself out of it and turned off the taps. After she toweled off she applied bandages to the infected small infected wounds around her body and took one of the pain pills. 

She walked over to the sofa where, instead of the bowl of red loquats on the coffee table, there was a covered tray and several packets lying next to it. She lifted the top off of the tray to reveal that the evening meal had been prepared and brought to her. Johanna sat and took a few bites of it and picked up one of the packets.They were made to stick where applied and provide “cold therapy” to the site. 

_ Cold should help tonight _ , she remembered him saying. 

Johanna couldn’t figure out what his endgame was. He seemed more of a “fend for yourself” type, rather than a “send pain pills and cold therapy packets” type. Kylo needed her for more than whatever Snoke demanded of her to fulfill her debt, but she couldn’t figure out what is was or how on her guard she needed to be around him.

Once she had eaten her fill of the food Johanna took one of the cold packets into the bedroom with her. She lifted her nightshirt and applied the sticky bandage carefully to the bruise. The sensation was terrible and it took everything in her to not rip the thing off immediately. 

The bed looked inviting and she crawled into it carefully. Her eyelids felt heavy and, despite the unpleasant tingling on her side, she fell into a deep sleep almost instantly.

 

 


	6. The Mechanic Shop

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ;)

_ His lips pressed hard against hers and she felt his hand travel down her throat, past her chest, and push down her side. He kissed his way across her jaw to her ear and his free hand held her head in place. _

_ “Are you mine?” he whispered. His hand traveled further down and slipped into her underwear. His fingers found her center and barely entered her, just enough feel her wetness and make a soft moan escape from her lips. _

_ “You didn’t answer me,” he said. “Are you mine?” _

_ It would be so easy to give herself over to him, let him take her. And it was what she wanted, someone else to take control from her for once.  _

_ She let the word fall from her lips, “Yes.” _

_ His fingers entered her and bit down on the soft skin of her neck. Her hands latched around his neck and her hips bucked against him…. _

 

  
Johanna sat up from the bed with a start. Her cheeks felt hot and her underwear was uncomfortably damp. She pulled the cold bandage from her side and flung it across the room then buried her face in her hands. No one would know what her dream was about, but she still felt an immense amount of embarrassment about it. She flipped the sheets off of herself and slid from the bed, then changed her panties and dressed in something as basic as yesterday.

The only thing that changed in the living area was the tray that had contained the evening meal. It was replaced with a new one with items fit for a morning meal. Johanna picked up a large, round fruit and bit into it while she studied the display of her scheduled day. She felt the blush creep back into her cheeks at the thought of spending another hours long session with Kylo. When her stomach was full she took one of the pills from the vial.

With a sigh she got up and headed to the training room. By the time she arrived she was still fifteen minutes too early. She held onto a table that was nearly identical to the one she had turned to splinters and gently tried to loosen the tightness under her skin. With the pill already at work, she only felt pain when the muscles were stretched too far. 

Kylo Ren entered the room without a sound or a look at her. He removed his helmet, cowl, and gloves then placed the chair in the same spot it had been yesterday. He stood several paces in front of it. Johanna took his actions to mean that he wanted her to sit in it, as she had the day before. Why wasn’t he saying anything?

He held up his hand and on his upturned palm sat two of the small smooth stones.

“Are you kidding me?” she scoffed.

“No,” he said simply. “Hold them.”

Johanna sighed, then brought her arm up and lifted them. He didn’t try to crack into her mind or distract her for the hours she spent keeping the stones hanging on the sir. He stayed nearly as still as she was. 

When Kylo decided the time had come to end their training for the day, he simply told her “Well done.” 

She let the stones land on the ground and sat back in the chair. Kylo passed her on his way to gather his belongings. 

“Is this going to be your training then? Spending days holding rocks in the air?” she asked him. 

When he didn’t answer her she stood and turned to him. He was already placing his cowl over his shoulders.

“If this gets boring, I may not be as willing to play by the rules,” she said as she crossed her arms.

“Your noncompliance would void your deal with Snoke,” he said.  _ Why _ wouldn’t her look at her?

“So you’re run to go tell him that I’m not playing nice?” she put a hand on the chair in front of her and pulled it off to the side. It skidded across the floor. Kylo stood tall as she approached him, but she could feel the anger washing over him and let it feed her. She threw as much venom into her words as she could.

“What are you? Knight or slave? Little boy hiding behind the scary man’s robes? Where will you be when you don’t have Snoke to run to?” she ended her taunts standing right on top of him. He looked down at her with the same fire in his eyes that she felt deep in her.

They stood there for a moment, both stewing in their furious desire to tear each other apart. Johanna took a few steps back, but kept her eyes on him.

“Please,” she started, “reconsider your training methods,  _ Commander _ .”

The title was added more out of spite than any sort of respect. He couldn’t order her punished for the way she spoke to him anymore, not if Snoke needed her to finish whatever mission Kylo had begun on Pabos. 

Johanna turned and strode out of the room. Her hands were flexing in and out of fists, her neck was tense. She wanted to feel something familiar and warm and she found her feet walking past the turn she would have taken to go to her apartment.

Several elevators and hallways later she was on the lower decks of the mechanic shop. She kept herself hidden in the shadows and behind larger machines or ships as she made her way through the shop.

Manas’ presence was obviously missing. There was a new foreman running the shop. She was clearly competent and ran a top notch maintenance squad, but Johanna didn’t feel any of the nostalgia or sense of home she had been looking for.

Johanna settled into a spot far away from everyone to watch them. Most of the crew was there. Luka was getting the hang of things, Eloid seemed to be back to his normal rambunctious self, but even a quick delve into his mind proved that he was struggling just beneath his facade, and Alred was outwardly much more solemn. Johanna couldn’t find D’aja and it seemed that she had been replaced by a new team member. She felt a hole in her heart start to burrow. This place gave her no comfort.

The mechanics finished their day without the slightest sense that she was there. A simulated whistle sound rang through a speaker signaling the end of shift and the tired men and women made their way out of the shop in a group. The new foreman had set up in her office with a stack of paperwork for a long night, but it only took a small influence from Johanna for her to decide that she had better things to do outside of the shop. 

Johanna waited a minute or two until the woman was gone, trying to feel for anyone’s presence. When she was satisfied that she was alone she stepped out from her hiding spot. 

The shop felt familiar, but far away. She let her hand run over a cart of tools, barely hovering over the dull metal pieces. Her hand found a rusted wrench and she picked it up. Twirling it in her hands she wandered to the middle of the giant warehouse, examining both the huge TIE fighters and smaller droids that needed repairs. 

She held the wrench out with her palm open and used the Force to capture it then push it from her. With her other hand she called up an internal piece of some machine. With the two steadily held in place, Johanna reached out for more objects around her. Then more and more and more, dividing her concentration each time. Soon she was her own star and the mechanic shop were her planets. She closed her eyes and breathed enjoying this control she had over her own power.

And then she felt herself collapsing. It was small, at first, but soon Johanna was overwhelmed. The objects that had been encircling her fell to the floor with a loud  _ CLANG _ and Johanna’s eyes flew open. She gasped as air filled her lungs. She hadn’t realized she had been holding her breath and she doubled over as she tried to catch it.

“Impressive,” said a deep voice from behind her. “For someone who can barely hold a single object for a few hours without complaint, you managed to do all of that without prompting.” 

Johanna turned. Kylo was crouched against a wall behind her. 

“Didn’t take you for stalking type,” she said. 

“You have a habit of making yourself rather conspicuous,” he returned. 

She didn’t feel any sort of emotion coming off of him, but she felt the little flame of anger form in her belly.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“The last time I felt the Force that strongly on this ship you were turning a man into a vegetable,” Kylo said. Johanna’s face felt warm and she hoped her cheeks weren’t giving away her embarrassment. She had lost herself in that moment and she regretted it.

“I’d be happy to help you to join him. I’m sure he’d appreciate a friend,” she said as she approached him. 

He straightened and suddenly seemed to tower over her. Johanna tipped her back slightly to look in his eyes, try to figure out what he was thinking. Then the wall keeping her out of his mind dropped and she saw what he wanted. The little flame of anger in her belly exploded into desire and in seconds her lips were on his. 

He turned them around and pushed her hips against the wall. Her hands gripped at his shoulders as she kissed him greedily. She ran her tongue across his bottom lip and when he didn’t give a negative response, she nibbled at it gently.  Kylo hardened against her leg and she smirked against his lips.

Johanna felt his lips leave hers and trail kisses across her jaw and down her neck. She buried her fingers in his hair and her breath hitched when he bite down on a spot near her collarbone.

There was a tug in her mind as Kylo made an attempt to get it. She was distracted but it still wouldn’t be that easy. Instead of whatever he was looking for, she replayed parts of her dream from the morning, specifically leaving out any parts mentioning her conceding to him. 

“ _ Fuck,”  _ he whispered against her skin. 

Johanna breathed in sharply at the curse. Her hand moved down his body and over to the bulge in his pants. She rubbed him, gently at first, testing the waters, but a hand grabbed her wrist to stop her. 

“No,” he said. Johanna felt herself flush. She hoped she hadn’t misread the impossible situation she found herself in. 

He pulled her from the wall and slipped behind her. Kylo grabbed her hips and pulled her to himself so her back was pushed up against his chest. Johanna could feel him throbbing against his pants down below.

“I think you’d prefer this,” he whispered in her ear. 

His hand traced down her bruised side, the gentle pressure caused her let out a short hiss. Then he found his way into her pants and into her panties, which by now were fairly wet. He gathered a bit of wetness then circled her clit with little movements than made Johanna’s chest heave as she started to breath heavier. 

Johanna felt another tug at her mind.

“Get outta my head, Ren,” she said between breaths. 

Kylo made a noise that seemed to indicate that he liked hearing his name come out of her mouth. When he spoke his voice was deep and husky.

“Just wanted to make sure you were enjoying yourself,” he said.

“Have to do that the old fashioned way like everybody else,” she responded.

He must have taken the sentiment to heart because the next thing she knew, Kylo was bringing her arm up and hand to the back of his hair so her fingers were tangled in his soft black waves. His fingers dipped into center and returned to her clit, but this time he had upped his speed and a small moan escaped from her lips. 

As one of his hands worked on her down below, his other hand every so often applied pressure to the bruise on her side. The mix of the pain and pleasure sent shock waves through her and soon Johanna felt her orgasm building. With her fingers wrapped tightly in his hair and her chest heaving, he knew too.

Kylo kissed his way to her earlobe and bit on it slightly. 

“Say my name again,” he whispered.

Even in such a compromising position Johanna was stubborn and resolute. She wouldn’t be saying anything and instead bit her bottom lip to stifle any moan that threatened to escape as she climaxed. 

Johanna kept her eyes closed as she rested her head against Kylo’s chest during her come down. Her breath was still heavy when he removed his hand from her pants and called a rag to hand to wipe her off of his fingers. She felt him tilt her head he had better access to her neck. He kissed it.

“Johanna,” he said then planted another gentle kiss on her neck.

“Hmm?” she said. Kylo Ren saying her name like that made her stomach flutter. 

He grabbed her more forcefully and sucked at the spot on her throat he previously been so gentle about. He was marking her. 

She hadn’t noticed she had left her hand in his hair until he had grabbed her arm and held it close to her torso. He whispered fiercely in her ear, his voice no longer sultry and low. 

“It would serve you to remember who was commander here,  _ Johanna,”  _ he said in a tone that sent chills up her spine instead of butterflies in her stomach. 

Kylo released her and left the shop, dropping the soiled rag in a container for such items. She stood frozen, eyes wide. She was still processing the last few minutes and how he was able to switch to easily. 

Johanna waited until she couldn’t feel him anywhere near, then waited some more. Finally she put herself together and went back to her room.


	7. Spiraling

A loud, sharp consistent beeping woke Johanna. She pulled herself out of the bed and followed the sound to the living area of her apartment. The hologram that usually displayed her schedule was blinking in time with the beeping--an alarm. Johanna pressed a button on the small table to make it stop and studied the display. She normally relied her own internal clock to wake her up on time, but today she was off and the hologram was warning her that she was going to be late to her training session. 

Johanna wasn’t fond of seeing Kylo after the previous night, nor was she in the mood to make him angry. Last night was unexpected, to the say the least. For someone that prided herself on being relatively unflappable, Kylo’s behavior sent her mind reeling. She would have to pay attention to him -- and herself -- more closely. 

She sped through her morning routine a bit faster than normal, but slowed when she realized the mark he had put on her neck right underneath her ear was still there and very visible. Johanna braided her hair and let it hang over her shoulder, hoping that would be enough to hide the dark bruise. 

Her face was flushed when she looked back at herself in the mirror. She splashed cold water from the tap onto her face and tried to push the previous night out of her mind, then headed out to meet with the one person she absolutely did not want to see.

  
  


As expected, Kylo was already waiting for her in the training room. He sat in one of the chairs placed in the middle of the room, the other empty chair facing him, placed no more than three or four feet from him Johanna had noticed, was meant for her. They would be in close quarters today, then. Her’s stomach fluttered. 

Kylo’s hadn’t bothered to make a quip about her tardiness. In fact, the only sign of acknowledgement he gave that she was even in the room with him was when she took her seat across from him his dark eyes found hers. 

Johanna was very aware of the closeness of their knees and she saw his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed. The look on his face was hard for her to figure out, but he looked almost...apologetic? Perhaps that was only something she had hoped to see on his face.

The silence in the room was beginning to grow loud and Johanna needed to fill it with  _ something _ . She didn’t want to talk about what happened in the mechanic shop, even after seeing the mark on her neck she was still had trouble believing it wasn’t wasn’t a dream. 

“So, uh, what--” she began but cut herself off when Kylo raised his hand and she felt the assault on her mind. He was trying to get in and was throwing everything he had into it.

A pounding rose from the back of Johanna’s head like a battering ram that nearly took her breath away. She set her jaw and met his eyes as her eyebrows knit together in effort. Her fingers clenched onto the edge of the chair as she focused her energy on pushing him out. 

Kylo’s neck muscles tensed and his chest began to heave as he lost the ability to catch his breath in his own effort. Sweat beads broke out across his forehead. The signs of his mental effort rolling over to his physical body told Johanna that it was the perfect time to make her final push. 

She took a deep breath in, eyes still locked on his, and forced him out of her head. Her arm was raised before he could react and she was already wriggling her way through the cracks in his mind. She hadn’t dared try to sneak in recently, Kylo’s threat to run to Snoke fresh in her mind, but his hostile attempt to take over her mind made his fair game. 

Johanna wormed her way through whatever she could get her hands on, which was surprisingly easy. Once through his barrier he crumbled and she was able to see the destruction of Ben Solo and the creation of Kylo Ren through a lens she wasn’t sure if Snoke could even use. Curiosity took over and she found herself lost in him.

_ “Please,” _ came a voice from inside of her head. It seemed so small, far away. Johanna pulled herself out of her trance and looked at Kylo. His eyes were pleading, his jaw was clenched. He was begging her to stop. 

Johanna lowered her arm and came back to reality. Kylo hunched over and his head hung low. She stood and backed away from him.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered to him and left the training room.

 

Johanna wasted no time going back to her living quarters. If anyone was trying to get her attention -- which no one would, she had only interacted with Kylo since her meeting with Snoke -- Johanna would not have noticed them. 

She was spiraling. Her breath was becoming shallow and fast and by the time she reached her apartment Johanna had to grip onto the wall for some sort of support. She rested her forehead against it; the cold metal felt calming against her hot skin. 

The thoughts that were threatening to spill over whatever dam she had erected in her mind settled again. She breathed out slowly as she focused her thoughts on one thing: control. Johanna needed to get a grip on herself before she made enough wrong moves to cancel her deal with Snoke. She didn’t know what the First Order would do with her then, but it certainly wouldn’t just drop her on some habitable planet and forget about her.

In a last ditch attempt to keep herself together, Johanna decided to escape into the confines of her shower. It was small enough to make her feel safe and the cool water pouring over her skin kept her skin at a level temperature. She stood there for what seemed to be hours letting the water skim over the curves of her body.

And organized review of Kylo Ren’s thoughts and feelings during her very unwanted assault on his mind seemed to bring her back down. Behind his mask he was much like everyone else: alone, scared, worried about where his path would lead him. His feelings were tumultuous about his future with the First Order, with Snoke. He felt a calling deep within him to return to the light and his family, to set about a course of forgiveness. There was also a part of him, a stronger, more seductive part, that had vice grip on the dark side. The dark side had given him everything he wanted. Right? 

Johanna turned off the water. She didn’t like to think about which was stronger in herself, much less about Kylo’s. There was no reason for it, for herself. The light had never helped her and the dark had only caused her pain. She tried to stay in the middle as much as she could, but she was beginning to understand why she had cut herself off from the Force before. 

The shower had only increased her level of exhaustion and once she had dried herself off she climbed into the bed and sleep took over her.

  
  
  


The next morning Johanna awoke to the sound of the beeping hologram in her living quarters again. She rolled over so she was facing up and her eyes concentrated on a spot in the ceiling. Instead of getting out of bed to address the alarm, she just laid there. The urgency she had felt yesterday was no longer present.

Johanna felt numb. Her sleep was fitful and she spent a lot of it trying to shake off whatever tumultuous dream she had to force herself out of. Now as she lay in the bed, invading thoughts bounced around her skull and she tried to push them out. 

She knew that after a while she would be disturbed either the person that brought her food, who had so artfully managed to avoid her thus far, or Kylo Ren. The thought of facing either of them right now was unappealing. She decided to take her chances wandering around the base, blending as much as she could into the background.

Johanna reached into the closet and extracted the uniform she had worn to meet Snoke. There was no indication of a rank anywhere on the uniform, but she doubted anyone would be looking close enough at her to notice. 

_ Passable _ , she thought as she adjusted the headache inducing bun at the nape of her neck when she examined herself in the mirror. 

She pulled her gloves on one at a time and quickly exited her apartment before the possibility of Ren’s hulking figure could round a corner. 

The halls were mostly empty. Most people were busy about their duties and, as expected, the patrolling Stormtroopers paid her no mind. She even briefly gleaned into their minds to make sure that she wouldn’t be setting off any internal alarm bells for them.

Where would she go? The idea of going back down to the mechanic shop sent her stomach fluttering and her face flushed. No, the mechanic shop had lost its comforting feeling.

Instead she found feet carrying her to the large open room where the functioning TIE fighters were stored and launched from. She managed to find her way up to an empty catwalk and sat, her legs dangling off of the side and head resting on one of the railings. 

TIE fighters were taking off and returning at frequent intervals. While it was likely just a training exercise for the pilots, she couldn’t be sure. Lots of information on this base was strictly need to know, and Johanna had never needed to know very much. Perhaps they were travelling to take out a legion of rebels or other enemies? She couldn’t guess and likely wouldn’t get an answer if she did ask.

Johanna watched the men and women below her for hours, none of them paying any mind to the woman on the catwalk. She idled all day until the shift was over and the doors to the outside galaxy began to close. She used the hustle and bustle of the shift change to get back to her apartment unnoticed; just another nameless officer retiring for the day. 

When she neared her room, though, Johanna stopped just before entering her code into the datapad.  _ He _ was in there, she could feel him. Before she could even think about running away again her door slid open. 

Johanna took cautious steps inside raking her eyes across the small living area, waiting for some kind of attack. But he wasn’t hiding. He had pulled the two chairs from a small dining table she had never utilized before and placed them facing each other in an open area. Kylo was facing her, his hands rested on his knees. How long had he been here?

There was silence as the door closed behind her.

“How did you get the code?” she asked, her hazel eyes drilling into his dark brown ones. There was only anger in her voice, though for him or herself, she wasn’t certain.

“How did you get mine?” he responded. His voice was calm, but the intensity behind his eyes matched hers. 

Johanna remembered her first night back on base, when she only had to briefly enter his mind while he dreamt to figure out a few numbers. She also remembered going a little to far and  invading his dreams. Her heartbeat sped up at the thought of what he might have learned.

“What did you see?” she asked. He paused, going over something in his head. Johanna’s eyes flicked away from his face in a moment of uncertainty.

“Nothing that would cause you harm,” he said finally. The response gave her little comfort.

There was another silence, one she had to fill.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“You missed your training session this morning,” he responded matter-of-factly. 

Johanna then realized the reason for the setup of the chairs and his intrusion.

“Looks like I’m not getting out of it” she said crossing her arms over her chest. When he gave no verbal response she continued.

“Do you want to end up like Admiral Gildan? He’s barely alive! And h-his family….” she trailed off as her voice cracked. She hated that she couldn’t control herself and she hated this display of weakness in front of him. 

Within seconds Kylo had stood and strode over to her. She felt her back press against the closed door as his body pressed her against its metal surface. He placed a gloved hand under her jaw and raised her face so she had other choice but to look into his eyes. They were the most sincere she had ever seen them.

“You need... _ I _ need you to-” he struggled through the words, his eyes darting around her face as he looked for a glint of understanding from her. When her brows knit together in confusion, he realized she wouldn’t. 

He moved his hand to the nape of her neck. Johanna didn’t dare move her eyes away from his. 

“I am alone. I-I need someone, need you to….” he couldn’t finish. He shut his eyes in a move to keep himself somewhat together.

Johanna brought her hand up and placed it lightly on his face. At her touch he seemed to calm and his eyes returned to hers before moving down to her lips. She felt her heartbeat quicken.

Kylo’s eyes flicked back up to hers before he slipped his other arm behind her lower back and pulled her away from the door and against his body. The hand behind her neck pulled forward until their lips were touching. The kiss was soft and gentle, but still sent sparks shooting across Johanna’s entire being. 

In mere seconds, the warmth of his body enveloping her was gone. The door slid opened then closed behind and Kylo Ren was gone. She opened her eyes and she was alone in her empty living quarters. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Taking a short hiatus to finish up this story. Hopefully this story can finish on a more regular schedule.


End file.
